A few weeks ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk began selling shares in his company, and the share price came under noticeable pressure. Now Elon Musk has sold shares again for one billion US dollars. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has again sold off shares in his company. The entrepreneur sold about 934,000 papers for about one billion US dollars, as emerged from mandatory notifications to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday night.
As of today, it is possible to pay with Bitcoin in the US online store of the US car manufacturer Tesla. “You can now buy Tesla with Bitcoin,” writes company founder Elon Musk on Twitter.
Tesla does not work with third-party providers for BTC payments, who exchange Bitcoin for US dollars in the background and then transfer them to Tesla, but accepts the BTC directly. According to Musk, Tesla would work exclusively with internal open-source software and also operate a Bitcoin node itself.
The company announced this promise back in February 2021. At the same time, 1.5 billion dollars were invested in digital currency. The value of Bitcoin had risen sharply in recent months – at the beginning of January, it climbed temporarily to over 40,000 dollars. In mid-March, it even cracked a record value of over 60,000 dollars.
Analysts at Bank of America have converted Bitcoin’s carbon footprint to cars. But they also have other arguments against cryptocurrency.
Unclean investment: The US electric car manufacturer Tesla recently purchased a large amount of Bitcoin. The action is controversial from a climate protection perspective because of the high computing power required for cryptocurrency. Bank of America has related Bitcoin investments to internal combustion vehicles.
Investors concerned about environmental aspects of their investments should “pay attention to Bitcoin’s enormous environmental costs,” according to a Bank of America report titled “Bitcoin’s dirty little secrets.” As the authors calculated, buying $1 billion worth of Bitcoin releases as much carbon dioxide as 1.2 million internal combustion engine vehicles in a year.
The Tesla share had recently slumped – to the delight of short-sellers. Now the stock is taking off again. The reason for the upward price is probably the same as that which is driving the bitcoin price.
Over the past four weeks, Tesla’s share price has fallen from just under $850 to as low as $550. But that’s after a near-unprecedented 2020 rally that had made Tesla the most valuable automaker and CEO Elon Musk the richest person in the world. The sharp drop saw the electric carmaker lose around $277 billion in market capitalization. Currently, however, things are looking up again.
Tesla share: Strong gain after slump
On Monday, the Tesla share had lost another 6.5 percent, but on Tuesday, the stock was marked by a – possibly only temporary – recovery. In the early afternoon of Tuesday, New York, the stock posted a strong gain of up to 18 percent on the Nasdaq tech exchange. The stimulus for this renewed price explosion could be the same as currently driving the bitcoin price up the 1.9 trillion dollar aid package passed in the US.
Tesla will build an automobile factory in India. This was claimed by the chief minister of the state of Karnataka on Sunday, the “FAZ” reported. Only in January, Tesla registered the subsidiary Tesla India.
The e-pioneer seems to want to profit from the growth of the populous state. In addition to production, sales are also to be expanded. However, electric mobility still enjoys a niche existence there. To date, India only has a total of 5,000 electric cars. According to the Ministry of Transport, however, the country strives to become a significant player in the future electromobility market.
“In retrospect, it was inevitable.” The words Elon Musk tweeted in late January 2021 make quite a bit of sense in retrospect. Tesla is now the most valuable company globally that has made a billion-dollar investment in Bitcoin and will help cryptocurrencies further into the mainstream. So Tesla will continue to invest in Bitcoin, and it will accept crypto assets as payment in its stores in the future.
This news, hidden in a document for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has propelled Bitcoin to new heights. On Tuesday night, BTC grew to as high as $47,600. That represents a recent price increase of nearly 20 percent in 24 hours and a gain of almost 35 percent in a week. These hefty gains benefit retail investors and those companies (e.g., MicroStrategy, Square, PayPal, etc.) that have put a lot of money into Bitcoin as a gold alternative in recent months as institutional investors.
The federal government is funding U.S. electric carmaker Tesla to the tune of billions of euros. This was reported by “Businessinsider” at the beginning of the week, citing insiders from government circles. Tesla’s application for the “IPCEI” funding program of the Federal Ministry of Economics seems to have paid off.
Specifically, the battery cell factory in Grünheide is receiving funding. In addition to Tesla, 10 other companies are receiving funding. According to Businessinsider, the IPCEI program was once initiated to support European companies in key technologies so that they could take on the Chinese and U.S. competition – now, however, possibly the biggest competitor of Volkswagen, BMW & Co. will be awarded the contract.
The specific amount of funding is not yet known. However, several sources in government circles have reported that the amount is in the “single-digit billions.
The federal government is providing two-thirds of the funding and the state of Brandenburg one-third.
Production at the Gigafactory in Grünheide is scheduled to start in July. Production will include Model 3 and Model Y vehicles as well as various batteries and powertrains.
